Julian Schnabel (b. 26 October 1951) is an Academy Award nominated and Golden
Globe winning filmmaker and American artist.
Early life and education
Born in Brooklyn, New York City to Esta and Jack Schnabel. Schnabel moved
with his family to Brownsville, Texas when still young. Although he was
Jewish, he attended a Marist Brothers Catholic school there. It was in
Brownsville that he spent most of his formative years and where he took up
surfing and resolved to be an artist.
He received his B.F.A. at the University of Houston. After graduating, he sent
an application to the independent study program at the Whitney Museum of
American Art in New York. His application included slides of his work sandwiched
between two pieces of bread; he was promptly accepted. Struggling in the art
world, Schnabel worked as a short-order cook and frequented Max's Kansas City, a
restaurant-nightclub, while he worked on his art. In 1975, Schnabel had his
first solo show at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston. Over the next few
years he traveled frequently to Europe, where he was enormously impressed by the
work of Antoni Gaudi, Cy Twombly and Joseph Beuys.
Art
It was with his first solo show, at the Mary Boone Gallery in 1979, however,
that Schnabel would truly come to be regarded as a major new force in the art
world. He participated at the Venice Biennale in 1980 and by the mid-1980s had
become a major figure in the Neo-expressionism movement. By the time he
exhibited his work in a show jointly organized by Boone and Leo Castelli in
1981, he had become firmly established. His now famous "plate paintings",
large-scale paintings set on broken ceramic plates, brought on a boisterous and
critical response from the art world. But what was beyond doubt was the vibrancy
that Schnabel brought to the art scene. Using Kabuki theatrical sets, velvet and
animal hides, his bold, somewhat confrontational style recalled the energy and
daring of Picasso and Pollock.
Schnabel's signature works contain an underlying edge of brutality while still
being suffused with energy. Schnabel claims that he's "aiming at an emotional
state, a state that people can literally walk into and be engulfed."
His works are in the collections of various museums throughout the world, among
them the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art; The Whitney Museum of
American Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles; Reina Sofia
and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
Directing
In addition to his work as an artist, Schnabel has written and directed three
films: Basquiat, a biopic on the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat (1996), Before
Night Falls (2000), an adaptation of Reinaldo Arenas' autobiographical novel,
which he also produced, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), an
adaptation of a French memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby. The Diving Bell and the
Butterfly earned him the award for best director at the 2007 Cannes Film
Festival, the Golden Globe for best director, the Independent Spirit Award for
best director, and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director.
Writing and recording
Schnabel published his autobiography CVJ: Nicknames of Maitre D's & Other
Excerpts From Life, in 1987 and released the album "Every Silverlining Has a
Cloud" on Island Records [Catalog #314-524 111-2] in 1995. Recorded in Brooklyn,
NY in 1993, the album features guest musicians including Bill Laswell, Bernie
Worrell, Buckethead, and Nicky Skopelitis.
Personal life
Schnabel lives in New York, maintaining studios in New York City and in Montauk
on the eastern end of Long Island with a house in San Sebastian in Spain. He
has three children by his first wife, clothing designer Jacqueline Beaurang: a
son, Vito an art dealer, and two daughters, Lola a painter and film-maker,
Stella, a poet and actress. He also has twin sons, Cy and Olmo, by his second
wife, Spanish Basque actress and model Olatz López Garmendia. Garmendia appeared
in Before Night Falls, and is also to be seen in The Diving Bell, as Bauby's
physical therapist. Schnabel is fluent in Spanish.
Filmography
Basquiat (1996)
Before Night Falls (2000)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
References
^ Altschul, Serena. "Julian Schnabel, From Canvas To Camera", CBS News,
2008-02-03. Retrieved on 2008-02-05.
^ a b "The double life of Julian: how the bad boy painter turned fêted
director", The Independent, 2007-05-29. Retrieved on 2008-02-05.
^ a b c "Julian Schanbel: Larging It", The Daily Telegraph, 19 January 2008.
